The founders of EVN introduced an expanded and a new concept to the publishing industry nearly ten years ago in how a consumer of content goes about the act acquiring relevant information through a content-centric experience model that is captured the image below.

We introduced the term “Discover” or “Discovery” where publishers had focused only on search.  As further discussed below, discovery includes search, but expands beyond that to categorized browse, community driven recommendations, etc.  Further, our disaggregation of a “purchase” into a content-oriented purchase decision followed by a format decision was revolutionary.  We posited that a publisher lead with content, the true value of their rights management, and with properly structured margins, the publisher can be agnostic to the format in which content is consumed (print vs. electronic) as contribution margin should be identical across formats.

Discover

Discovery is driven as follows:

• Search and Advanced Search functions
• Categorized browse functions
• Data centric models, especially Top X lists, where X = Most:
• Searched
• Read
• Reviewed
• etc
• Community-driven models
• Share with a friend
• Ratings
• Facebook, LinkedIn, etc connectivity

Our Drupal solutions include moduels to support all these modes of discovery.  See especially our MarkLogic Search and Search Results Module for Druapl.

Experience

It is important that a prospective customer be able to experience the content to the extent necessary to make a purchase decision, ideally without completely meeting the driving need (which may or may not result in a purchase for further use, archive, etc.).  EVN purports a capability that enables reading specified portions of each piece of content in such a manner as to duplicate the act of reviewing a physical book in a brick and mortar store – to determine if it is desired for Purchase.  Amazon implemented this as the “Look-Inside-the-Book” program, which they report gives title sales on their website an average 8% lift in sales.  We explain this further in our Mark Logic Experience Module for Drupal section later in this document.

Purchase Decision

At the stage of having experienced the content and determining its relevance to the need at hand, the user is driven to a purchase decision – specifically of the content.

Format Decision

Once content has been selected, then and only then, is the actual format for the delivery of content discussed.  If multiple formats are available and appropriate for the user, the user may select the format of his or her content for provisioning – this may include the print book (hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, etc), an eBook, or simply access to a behind-the-pay-wall section of one or more website(s).